This blog is mostly about Religious Art, but I try to mix other topics in to keep it interesting.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

"Ten Unique Churches"

This came to me as an email from a friend. I don't have any idea who wrote it, or where it came from. But I love the churches, and that someone else shares my fascination. Thought I'd pass it along.

Enjoy your day.

TenUnique Churches

Harajuku:Japanese Futuristic ChurchThis futuristic non Catholic church is located in Tokyo and it was first unveiled by the design firm of Ciel Rouge Creation in 2005. The ceiling is specially made to reverberate natural sound for 2 seconds to provide a unique listening experience for worshipers and tourists.

Built in 1956, it is most known for its ultra-modern thirteen gold domed roof symbolizing the twelve

apostles and Jesus Christ as the largest center dome.

The interior of the church is completely adorned with byzantine style icons (frescoes).

Unfortunately the iconographer was deported back to his homeland before he was able to

write the names of all the saints as prescribed by iconographic traditions.

RužicaChurch: Where Chandeliers are made of Bullet Shells

Located over the Kalemegdan Fortress in Belgrade, Serbia, the Ružica Church is a small chapel decorated with... with trench art!

Its chandeliers are entirely made of spent bullet casing, swords, and cannon parts.

The space the church now occupies was used by the Turks as gunpowder storage for over 100 years and it had to be largely rebuilt in 1920 after WWI. Though damaged by bombings there was an upshot to the terrible carnage of The Great War. While fighting alongside England and the US , Serbian soldiers on the Thessaloniki front took the time to put together these amazing chandeliers. It is one of the world's finest examples of trench art.

Chapel of St-Gildas: Built into the base of a bare rocky cliff

The Chapel of St-Gildas sits upon the bank of the Canal du Blavet in Brittany, France . Built like a stone barn into

the base of a bare rocky cliff, this was once a holy place of the Druids.

Gildas appears to have travelled widely throughout the Celtic world of Corwall, Wales , Ireland and Scotland .

He arrived in Brittany in about AD 540 and is said to have preached Christianity

Carl Sagan Quotation

W.H. Auden Quotation

"A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish."